There died lately a woman not known to the public, but whose loss to
those who personally knew her can never be made good. The summer that
shall come may bring as of old roses and violets, but the summer that
is gone will never return. In the memory of all of us there are
persons who seem to have revealed to us the best that we know and are;
they are so lofty that we are raised, so noble that we are ennobled;
so pure that we are purified. They are generally women whose lives are
noiseless, who live at home, wives and mothers, without the ambition
that spurs men to strive for renown, but their days are full of such
richness of beautiful life that its fitting image is that finest
flower of tropical luxuriance, the magnificent Victoria Regia.
A nature so modest and simple, and a life so private that it seems
almost a wrong to speak of them publicly, yet a character so firm and
tranquil and self-possessed that if necessary it would have met
without doubt or hesitation any form of martyrdom, can hardly be
described without apparent exaggeration. She was born, in our familiar
phrase, a lady, and from the beginning, throughout a long life, she
was surrounded with perfect ease of circumstance. She was singularly
beautiful in her youth, and to the close of her life she had the charm
of personal loveliness. Her manner was direct and frank and cheerful,
and with her perfect candor and vigorous good-sense it scattered the
trivial and smirking artificialities of social intercourse as a clear
wind from the north-west cools and refreshes the sultry languors of
August. Early married to a man of the highest character and aims, and
of that practical good-sense which makes ability most effective, she
was in entire sympathy with his wise and humane interests, and thus in
her family she was most fortunate and happy.
Yet by beauty, wealth, position, and the natural possession of the
prizes for which life is generally a struggle, she was wholly
unspoiled. Her views of duty and of just human relations were so clear
and true that she reinvigorated the conscience of all who knew her.
She was curiously free from the little weaknesses which we
instinctively excuse in ourselves and others, and although her
absolute truthfulness necessarily but involuntarily rebuked us all, we
could no more be angry than with our own consciences. The reproach was
entirely involuntary. Never was a woman more tenderly tolerant of
every honest difference, or more careful not to wound either by look
or word or tone. Too true herself to suspect falsity in others, she
was much too sensible to assume the part of Mentor.
In the great mental and moral activity of her generation she was
instinctively liberal, and never questioned in others the complete
soul-liberty, as Roger Williams called it, which she calmly and
naturally maintained for herself. No reform could conceal from her its
essential value as a high aspiration, a good impulse, if nothing more;
and however grotesque and extravagant the reformer, she pierced his
mask of eccentricity and welcomed the earnest seeker, bewildered and
blinded though he might be. She judged speech and action by a
remarkable intuition of right and wrong, and it was interesting to see
how surely and smoothly she cut sophistry straight through to the
truth which it muffled and distorted. Men and women she valued solely
for their intrinsic worth, and never by conventional standards. A
fugitive slave and the Prince of Wales would have been treated by her
in a way which would have assured them both that the different
circumstances of their condition did not obscure their equal humanity.
To say this must not leave the impression that she was other than a
lady of the simplest, most refined, and most unobtrusive but cordial
manner. There must be no vision of a Lady Bountiful, or of a Lady of
the Manor, or of any self-conscious personage whatever. But a stronger
influence upon the lives with which she was brought in contact cannot
well be conceived, nor the perennial hope and encouragement which her
cheerful presence inspired. Domestic sorrows touched that strong and
noble heart not to any vehement demonstration, but to a deeper faith
and a sober serenity, which interpreted the poet's sense of "the still
sad music of humanity." Courage, confidence, cheerfulness--these were
the good angels that dwelt with her, and through her they breathed
their benediction on all whom she loved or who personally knew her. As
she lived in communion with great thoughts and the widest human
sympathies, so that her life, like our stillest, harvest-ripening
days, passed in sunny repose, so the end was peace. With no wasting
malady, no long decay of faculty, she tranquilly slept.
There is nothing that poets feign of women that was not justified by
her. In thinking of her lofty life there is no need of excuse or
allowance; for human nature, as it was never more unassuming or
simple, was never greater and lovelier than in her. Beautiful and wise
and brave and gentle and good, the thought of her is perpetual
blessing.